Update on EA’s Forum/Game Banning

It seems that someone spoke when he shouldn’t have. EA Apoc is now retracting his statement that if you were to be banned on their online forum, it would translate to a ban on your game accounts for all EA games. He labels his previous remarks as “innaccurate” and “a mistake”.

One thing that is disconcerting is that this is the second time that this “mistake” has happened. Previously, an EA forum moderator, in talking about SPORE, mentioned that forum bannings would translate into game account bannings. Was this just a poorly written memo that was misunderstood by a couple of EA representatives, is it a “testing of the waters” to see how badly the gaming public would react, or is it a possible future policy shift that was accidentally leaked?

Hey everyone,

If you didn’t notice, your C&C Community Manager, me, had a bit of a run-in with the video game blogging media today in reference to a direct quote I made on our forums here a few days ago in regards to how we handle bans and suspensions on the forums and in-game. You all know how we are greatly trying to protect and serve you from those who wish to disrupt our C&C community by breaking ToS on our forums or in-game, and I know everyone appreciates when we take action on those that are the worst.

That said, the previous statement I made recently (that’s being quoted on the blogs) was inaccurate and a mistake on my part. I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad.

If we suspend or ban you from the forums, that does not affect your in-game account and certainly it does not impact your in-game account for other games. Quite often we usually warn you before taking any type of action, suspend you before considering any type of ban, etc. I am sure you guys know that we are fairly tolerant and stress that you please show respect to others, but we also understand the forums are a place to be heard and express your opinion in a constructive manner. Everyone has their “flame” moments.

Your Posting in our official C&C EA Forums is enabled by an EA Nucleus account (the Master EA Account you typically login with to chose your Persona) — but access to the forums and access to the games are separate. Players who have been banned from EA Forums are not automatically banned from online access to their other EA games, or the game associated with that particular forum. Players can be warned, suspended, and/or then banned if they breach the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct in a forum, game or service. Each forum, game and service is managed independently by our customer support representatives responsible for that specific forum, game or service.

Suffice to say, when we take action on someone on our C&C forums here, for any number of ToS breaking reasons, it does not impact your C&C game account or any other EA Game Account connected to your forum name. The mods here do a great job of alerting me when we need to warn someone or take further action, if I haven’t seen it myself or heard it in a thread from one of you, but any action we take on a C&C Forum User, doesn’t impact their in-game status.

I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I hope everyone is able to see the greater good intent in that we are simply trying to keep the forums and in-game as friendly and fun environments as possible, just know that those two environments are treated seperately by myself, the mods, and especially our Customer Support team. =)

Sincerely,
APOC

*hopefully i’ll have better historical memorable moments as your C&C Community Manager than this one =) *